Balancing Art & Engineering

Several recent articles have done a great job of highlighting how unifying art and engineering goes a long way to solve design problems.

"Do engineers design? Can designers engineer? Looking back at great projects throughout history, it seems these kinds of questions never needed to be asked. Designing the bridge, to the Roeblings, meant something like this: design = aesthetics + engineering + performance” - Programmers, designers and the Brooklyn Bridge, UIWeb

"Design problem: Merge style with technology. The 1935 Sears Coldspot, developed with designer Raymond Loewy, was a bold leap forward for the lowly refrigerator. Loewy gave the clunky cold box a clean new look, wrapping the cooling unit with sheet metal. He made it easy for owners to open the door, even when their arms were filled with groceries. And he replaced the metal shelves inside with aluminum to prevent rusting. This was an early example of the integration of style and technology -- and sales soared.” - How to Design the Perfect Product, Fast Company

“I’m going to make a sweeping generalization here and say there are two grand reasons why people get involved in Web development: They like the programming and coding (they’re technical) or they like visual design on the Web (they’re artistic). Interestingly, though, it is now entirely possible to be technical and artistic at the same time. You can say goodbye to old grade-school traumas in which artistic types gazed longingly at math whizzes and vice-versa.” – High Accessibility, High Design, Joe Clark